David Kolbusz of Droga5 3 great ads I had nothing to do with

Skittles -Pinata

Honda - Asimo

David Kolbusz of Droga5 in 3 great ads I had nothing to do with

Posted on: August 22, 2017

A few words about David

David grew up in Canada and started work at TBWA\Toronto. He moved to Mother London in 2003, before relocating to the US with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in 2007. After creating some outstanding work, including a spot featuring Kevin Bacon for Logitech, he returned to the UK in 2010 to join Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

Now Droga5’s deputy executive creative director, Kolbusz has won a host of Cannes Lions for their work across brands such as The Guardian, Weetabix and Axe/Lynx.

David’s made lots of brilliant work in his time and it's not surprising that some of it has been chosen by other creative greats to be featured in our 3 great ads series. His "Dance" ad for Orange was selected by Gerry Human, "Three little pigs" was selected by Kate Stanners and Lynx "Sporty girl" was selected by Ben Priest.

David's choices

This is the film that breaks all the rules. We only have one rule actually, and David Kolbusz broke it to give us this highly entertaining, first ever, “2 great ads I had nothing to do with… plus another that can’t be named”.

Skittles "Piñata"

Tom Kuntz directed this 2008 ad for Skittles Chocolate Mix, which features Sean Donnellan dressed as a piñata, with bits of paper on his face and a paper-covered suit.

Piñata was developed at TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York, by executive creative director Gerry Graf. It has won awards at Cannes International Advertising Festival, 2008 (Silver Lion), the Art Directors Annual Awards, 2009 (Silver), International ANDY Awards, 2009 (Silver), The One Show (Gold Pencil), CLIO Awards (Gold).

Honda "Asimo"

This 2006 ad was directed by Peter Thwaites and created by Wieden & Kennedy. It stars an "advanced humanoid" robot called Asimo, that was under development by a team of Brussels-based computer experts for 20 years.

Asimo embodies the "warm, approachable, human, optimistic and always moving forward" approach to technology that Honda used to promote the launch of the new lower-emission 4×4 CR-V model. This is summed up in the tag line "More forwards please".

The ad that never made it to air

We can’t show the ad but you can watch David explain exactly which ad we’re talking about; you’re in for an entertaining 10 minutes.

About this series

In this series of short films, leading Thinkbox Academy members have the tricky task of selecting just three TV ads that have inspired them: brilliant commercials, old and new, that they admire but had nothing to do with.

The idea is not only to explore some of our greatest ads in the company of people who know a thing or two about making them, but also because of the proven link between creativity and effectiveness encourage the advertising industry to even greater heights.

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We run a series of short films in association with Campaign in which we ask Academy members to appear on film and talk about three great TV campaigns they admire but had nothing to do with. You can browse the collection here.

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